‘What if?' The haunting nature of running bad

Updated 9:37 pm, Monday, December 3, 2012

There's a saying in poker that you rarely remember the hands you win, but every minute detail of the ones that you lose occupies permanent brain space.

That's mostly true.

The biggest hand I ever lost was played during a $1,500 buy-in event at the World Series of Poker with the action at about the fourth level.

Several times before that hand, I had built my chips into one of the top stacks at the table, and every time I was in position to really take control of the action, something terrible would happen.

On one hand, this petite, friendly lady — who not only admitted she had entered her first poker tournament at her husband's insistence but backed it up with her play — made an absurd over-bet of 700 when the blinds were still 25/50. The action folded around to me. I looked down at two red kings and quickly moved her all-in.

She called and turned over a pair of fours. In the world of poker odds, this is about as good of a spot (an 80-20 favorite) to get your money in as you will find with five cards to come.

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The flop came down 4-4-Q, and I was dead.

The second shot to the gut came about an hour later. One of the players in the most desperate of chip positions moved all-in after a flop with two small diamonds and a 10 that made me a set.

When you make top set, you are good against every possible drawing scenario you can think of, but it's rare to ever have an opponent drawing completely dead with two cards to come.

I was up against the most logical scenario — the opponent was holding Qd-Jd and was making a move for the flush. Top set is a 72-27 favorite in this situation, but the As on the turn opened up a straight draw.

This turned into the horrifying reality when the Kc landed on the river. Another big hand lost.

At this point, the tournament was starting to break up to the point where outer tables were being broken down, and new players rotated in.

That was when a gentleman that had to be the chip leader took Seat 1. He had mountains of chips — the sort of stack that led you to believe he enjoyed playing very big hands vs. other fellow big stacks.

With the blinds still at 100-200, he had 20,000 minimum in front. I played with him for more than an hour, and it was obvious that he loved to call very light. So when the action was folded around to me in the small blind, I moved in for approximately 3,000 with A-K.

He snap called and turned over Ad-Qd. Again, it was a pretty good spot (70-30 advantage) in which to be ahead.

Two diamonds came down on the turn, a harmless spade on the turn, then the tournament-ending dagger on the river with the 4d. From a numbers perspective, it wasn't much of a bad beat.

But when the hand provided the culmination for a string of rotten luck, the chain of events became unforgettable.